It is widely recognized that viewing images in the form of a multimedia presentation is much more compelling than simply skimming through a stack of hard-copy prints, or looking at a series of static images presented sequentially using a slide projector, computer, or television screen. The addition of other elements to the presentation such as a sound track appropriate to the content of the images, the insertion of interesting transitions between the images, the addition of a video clip or the creation of various video-style special effects including fades and dissolves, image-collaging, or colorization makes the presentation much more interesting to the viewer and can greatly enhance the emotional content of the images being presented. The proliferation in the home of new television-based viewing platforms able to accommodate multimedia, including DVD or Video CD players, also increases the demand for this type of presentation.
For the ordinary photographic consumer, the creation of a multimedia presentation is not presently very convenient. Even if the images are available in digital form, a consumer must have facility with multimedia authoring software tools such as Macromedia Director™ or Adobe Premier™ in order to create such a presentation. These software tools, while very flexible, are aimed more at the professional presentation creator, have multiple options, and require a great deal of time and experience to develop the skill needed to use them to advantage. More recently, template-based multimedia presentation applications such as Photojam™, offered by Shockwave.com, or PC-based “movie making” applications such as Apple's I-Movie™ have become available. While these applications can simplify the creation of multi-media presentations for a consumer, they offer only a limited choice of initial presentation options, or do not offer much in the way of enabling the user to easily edit and improve the initial presentation. In addition, these applications offer no way for a user to easily and conveniently access various kinds of additional material such as stock images, graphics, video, sound clips, either public domain or copyrighted material, which could be used to make presentations much more exciting and compelling.
Thus, there remains a need for a simplified authoring system where an inexperienced user can easily create, edit, update, and customize a multimedia presentation and then obtain copies of the presentation in a variety of storage formats useful with multiple types of presentation devices.